


A Little Squirrelly

by PumpkinDoodles



Series: Taserbones Tumblr Prompts & Tiny (Adorkable) Fics [51]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Darcy gets roped into jogging, F/M, How did we get here?, it’s spiraling out of control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:47:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27192631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PumpkinDoodles/pseuds/PumpkinDoodles
Summary: Darcy just wants to feed some squirrels.
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Brock Rumlow
Series: Taserbones Tumblr Prompts & Tiny (Adorkable) Fics [51]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1484168
Comments: 44
Kudos: 369





	A Little Squirrelly

**Author's Note:**

> *I own nothing! We’reKeepingItTogether prompted this one, it’s hilarious

“Here you go, pumpkin seeds. Yummy, yummy,” Darcy said as she sprinkled raw pumpkin seeds on the ground around the tree. She tucked the bag back in her sweatshirt pocket. Darcy had discovered her favorite squirrel family when Jane had dragged her to Turkey Run Park for what Jane had called an “outing.” Darcy was not an outing person or a morning person, but she loved animals.

So, she’d started feeding the squirrels on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 6am. She hid it from Jane because she worried Jane would come up with a plausible and depressing ecological reason not to, like she was upsetting Earth In The Balance or whatever. Darcy became Secret Squirrel Lady. It was a whole stealth deal. Darcy scattered her last few seeds. “See you on Friday,” she said, stepping back. Pine straw crunched under her feet. She raised her hand to wave—

“Lewis?” a voice said. Darcy turned. A sweaty Brock Rumlow was standing on the trail. “What are you doing here?” he asked. She stared at him for a long moment. It wasn’t strictly her fault; he was shirtless, despite the chill.

“I’m, uh, jogging?” Darcy said. That sounded normal, right? He seemed like someone who’d mock her Squirrel Lady status. Squirrel Lady might be weirder than Cat Lady. He looked at her like he could tell she was a lunatic.

“You jog?” Rumlow said. She was too distracted to be offended by the question. His chest was actually shiny with sweat, she realized. He looked like the cover of a romance novel. Or _Men’s Fitness._ He should be holding a lady in a floofy dress—or hoisting a really big dumbbell. 

“Yup,” Darcy lied. “Three days a week. Six am.” She felt exactly like she was in third grade and hadn’t finished the back page of her math homework because she hadn’t known it was there. Also, she’d wanted to watch cartoons. 

“Three days, huh?” he asked.

“Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays,” Darcy chirped, feeling desperate. Why did fit people ask so many questions?

“Cool. Well, I’ll see you,” he said. She nodded.

“Sure!” Darcy said brightly. She watched as he jogged away. He had a nice back, she thought, for a semi-pro random forest interrogator. She strolled back to the car eating pumpkin seeds. 

She’d kept it stealth, she thought. Perfectly on the DL. Totally undercover.

She thought so.

  
  
  


* * *

Darcy parked her car on Friday morning, ready to feed her team. But she needed one last sip of her latte to will herself into the walk in the cold air. She was slugging back a little coffee and singing along to Cyndi Lauper when someone rapped on her car window. “Ahhhhhhhhh!” Darcy shrieked, before realizing it was Rumlow on the other side of the glass. She rolled down the window. It squeaked. He tilted his head. 

“Your window squeaks,” he told her.

“You scared me!” Darcy said. “And it does that. I don’t know why.”

“You should get that looked at—Cyndi Lauper?” Rumlow said.

“She’s fun. I like her. You ask a lot of questions this early in the morning,” she grumbled.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m here to help.”

“Help what?” Darcy said.

“I’ll be your running buddy,” Rumlow said. “Everyone does better with a buddy.”

It took a minute for Darcy to close her mouth. “You’re wearing a shirt,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, expression unreadable.

* * *

“Ughh, uhhh.” Darcy’s lungs hurt as she jogged slowly beside Rumlow. He had adjusted his pace for her, but she couldn’t hack it. “I—I—” she began, stumbling to a stop and leaning her hands on her thighs. She felt the need to crouch. Possibly lie down in the dirt. Just let the leaves cover her for a bit.

“You need to stretch more,” he told her, as Darcy huffed. He had stopped. Darcy looked up. 

“Go on without me, I’m not gonna make it, Chief,” she begged.

“Lewis,” he said, sighing. She managed to catch her breath.

“Tell my girl I love her. You’ll help her raise the baby, won’t you? I see how you look at her, I know there’s something between you and her—“

“Are you Pearl Harbor-ing me?” Rumlow said.

“Yes,” Darcy said, wiping her forehead. “I only Affleck under extreme duress.”

“We’ll walk,” Rumlow said.

“Awesome. Can we call it power walking and go to a mall?” she joked.

“I thought you’d been doing this?” he said, offering his hand to haul her upright again. She let herself hang on for a sec. He made sure she was steady before he let go, she noticed.

“At the mall, they have hot pretzels,” Darcy said, ignoring his question. 

“Power walking?” he said.

“I‘ll get you a hot pretzel and one of those shiny windbreakers,” Darcy said. He started to laugh. They walked for awhile, talking, as they neared her spot. She hung back a second and tried to surreptitiously toss some of her seeds at her squirrel tree by turning around next to the tree.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“Nothing! Just needed to, uh, adjust my shoe,” Darcy lied.

“Oh,” he said. “You got it?”

“I got it,” she said, hurrying to his side. She glanced guiltily back at the squirrels and mouthed _sorry._

Usually, she stayed to chat for a bit, check in. This felt rude. 

* * *

On Monday, Darcy was determined to avoid Rumlow. She showed up thirty minutes early to feed her crew. “I’m really sorry,” she was saying to them, scattering pumpkin seeds like she was making it rain. “I was unavoidably detained—” 

“Hey!” Rumlow said, skidding to a stop. He’d been running full tilt down the trail. “You’re here—”

“You’re here early,” Darcy said at the same time, voice flat.

“Yeah,” he said, grinning. “Ditto. I’m—I do my ten miles before you get here,” he told her.

“Oh,” Darcy said, feeling flummoxed. Of course he did.Then she had a brainwave. “Don’t let me slow you down. You gotta get those bad guys!” she said, voice bright with pure desperation.

“No, no,” he said.

She wanted to run—straight into the nearby Potomac. But who was she kidding? There was no way she’d swim to freedom. He could probably out-swim her. “You, uh, ever do a triathlon?” she asked, stalling for time by stretching. His face lit up.

“Oh, yeah. Love ‘em. And Tough Mudders? So fucking fun. Right out there on the margins, pushing yourself? There’s nothing better.” He smiled. “You wanna go for one?” Rumlow asked.

“God, no,” she said. “I’m not ready.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself,” he said seriously.

He kept trying to pep talk her as she grunted and huffed her way through a ten-minute mile.

* * *

On Tuesday, Darcy finally confessed everything to Jane. “Stop laughing, what do I do?” Darcy said.

“I can’t”—Jane was gasping with laughter—“be—believe it. Jogging?” Her voice was gleeful. “Squirrels?”

“Shut up,” Darcy said. “How do I get out of this?”

“Tell him. Use your words,” Jane said. 

“You’re no help,” Darcy said, sighing. 

* * *

“Lewis!” Rumlow called, as she got out of the car on Wednesday morning. He jogged over.

“Hi—I need to tell you,” Darcy began, before she realized he was shirtless again. “Oh.”

“What?” he said. “What is it?” He followed her gaze down to his chest, then grinned slowly. “Lewis,” he said, voice teasing. “C’mon now.”

“Ugh,” Darcy said. “That’s not what I meant!”

“It’s not?”

“I—I don’t,” she stuttered, trying to get the words out. She felt intensely frustrated. “I don’t jog!”

“What?” he said, frowning.

“I don’t jog,” she repeated. “I come here to feed the squirrels. I hate running.”

He stared at her.

“What?” Rumlow repeated.

“Ugh,” Darcy said. She pulled the seed bag out of her pocket. “Look! These are seeds, okay? I walk out there, I throw out some seeds, I say hi to Loud Eddie. He’s my favorite squirrel—”

“You sound shame the squirrel?” Rumlow said suddenly. “Lewis, that’s not nice.”

“He’s just chatty,” she said. 

* * *

“You lied to me,” he said, as they stood in front of the tree. He looked at her. She had thrown out some seeds.

“Sorry,” Darcy said. She felt a smidge guilty. She offered him the bag. He tossed some, too.

“No triathlon?” he asked.

“Hell, no,” Darcy said, groaning.

“Hot pretzel?” he countered.

“You’re teasing me,” she said.


End file.
